Through new administrative developments and the availability of new resources, Tufts has been taking steps to increase diversity among its students, faculty and administration.
In February, former Tufts student Karen Pritzker and her husband Daniel (LA '81) added $5 million to their Pritzker Challenge Gift, a fundraising project to bring more minority students to Tufts.
A trustee of Tufts since 2003, Pritzker attended Tufts for two years before transferring to the University of Chicago to finish out her degree. A life-long philanthropist, she strongly believes that education is the key to helping disadvantaged families pull themselves out of poverty.
In an e-mail to the Daily, Pritzker described the experience of spending her first years of education studying alongside children abroad as the daughter of a foreign service officer.
"Despite the prevalent poverty in places like Haiti and Liberia, our classmates had hope and a vision of their own place in their society and the contribution that they could make to their country through their education," she wrote.
She did not find the same situation in the United States. "The most striking thing to me about U.S. inner cities is a nearly complete absence of that hope, so crucial for a healthy society," she said. "Instead of hope on the West side and the South side of Chicago, there was pure, unadulterated alienation from 'white' America. An alternative universe seemed to parallel but never intersect with that of white, downtown, Chicago; not even in most people's minds, apart from the occasional overspill over of violent crime."
The pair initially pledged $5 million to the University in 2002 and challenged other Tufts donors to match their pledge. Once that number was matched, they kicked in their second $5 million donation, bringing the total to $15 million.
"As U.S. News and World Report makes top colleges rush towards ever higher degrees of selectivity, it might be useful to bear in mind that all people are intelligent and capable of high levels of achievement and learning," Pritzker said. "It seems outrageous that it should cost $160,000 to provide one over-privileged child of the elite with a bachelor's degree."
According to Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin, financial donations like the Pritzker Challenge Gift have no effect on the decision-making process but do influence the amount of financial aid available to students who need it.
Greater resources allow the University to offer fewer loans and more grants, allowing admissions to increase socioeconomic diversity.
Coffin said he works hard to bring in diverse classes every year because "meeting different people is a fundamental part of the college experience.
"Diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, [and] religion ... is very important," though academic performance in high school is still the most important factor in the admissions process, he said.
According to University Provost Jamshed Bharucha, a portion of the return on the $100 million Omidyar donation made last year by Tufts alumni Pierre (LA '88) and Pam Omidyar (J '89) will also help fund summer classes for economically disadvantaged students.
The Tufts administration has also applied itself to improving faculty diversity in the wake of a minority retention study released in 2004 that found Tufts to have poor rates.
According to the study in question, the Kaleidoscope Report, while the retention rate for Caucasian male faculty was 70 percent, the rate for African-American female faculty was zero percent. Women and minority retention rates in faculty were lower than 50 percent across the board.
Tufts "has made a concerted effort to recruit faculty members from underrepresented fields," Bharucha said. Despite being a traditionally male field, the computer science department faculty, for example, is now 57 percent female.
Tufts' Economics department was also recently ranked first in percentage of black faculty by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
With the appointment of new Veterinary School Dean Deborah Kochevar, Tufts now boasts an unprecedented level of diversity in its central administration, according to Bharucha: With Kochevar on board, the majority of school deans are either women or racial minorities, Bharucha said.
"Just as the faculty should represent diversity, so should the administration, and we have worked hard to do that," he said.
Since 2001, the number of women on the University's Academic Council has increased from four to 10, and the number of people of color from one to four. A similar trend can be seen in the University's Administrative Council, where women have increased from three to six and people of color from zero to three.
The Office of Diversity Education and Development is currently in charge of faculty diversification. It serves solely the Schools of Arts, Sciences and Engineering. In the near future, Bharucha hopes to significantly enhance these diversity efforts by creating the position of Director of Institutional Diversity.
The new Director of Institutional Diversity will report directly to Bacow and Vice President of Human Resources Kathe Cronin. As part of the University-wide Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO), the Director will be responsible for promoting diversity among faculty across Tufts' undergraduate and graduate schools.
The OEO is currently concerned with faculty compliance with regulations - such as the Americans with Disabilities Act - and addressing faculty grievances, according to Bharucha.
With its planned expansion, the OEO will change its name to the Office of Institutional Diversity and "will have the capacity to proactively engage the university community in thinking about diversity," Bharucha said.
But Bharucha cautioned that diversification is an ongoing process and that there remains a great deal of work to be done in terms of recruitment and retention of diverse students, faculty and staff.
